Russian Influence Operation Allegedly Funded American Media Stars

Russian meddling: Yesterday, the Department of Justice charged two Russian media operatives, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva (both affiliated with RT, formerly known as Russia Today), in a scheme it alleges funneled many millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based company that employs prominent heterodox/conservative commentators.

The company is almost definitely Tenet Media, founded by Lauren Chen (a.k.a. Roaming Millennial) and Liam Donovan, who allegedly knew the funding came from Russia; at least two contributors, meanwhile, were reportedly misled. The company employs Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Lauren Southern.

The commentators seem to believe they are the real victims, see here and here. The founders have not returned requests for comment.

But, per The Washington Post, “one unnamed Tenet contributor with 2.4 million YouTube followers on their own channel received $400,000 a month, plus a $100,000 signing bonus and performance incentives, just for making four videos a week for Tenet, according to the indictment. Another unnamed commentator made $100,000 per video, according to the indictment.” It is surprising that journalists seemingly did not think to ask why they’re getting paid so damn much per video, or where the outlet’s money might be coming from. I suppose they may have simply thought they were hot shit vs. accidentally payola’d. (Apparently, at one point, one commentator did ask where the money was coming from, but received a suspicion-inducing answer that was…deemed satisfactory.)

Who to trust? Of course, the media and the Department of Justice have not covered themselves with glory when it comes to Russia-meddling allegations; there’s a certain amount of ambient Russophobia, regardless of whether such allegations end up substantiated (ahem). But there are also legitimate cases of foreign meddling, and this may very well be that; it’s unclear how explicit the RT executives were in issuing content directives and how much the finished product that was pumped out to millions of hungry consumers deviated from what content creators had hoped to put out there.

It’s also possible that the messages put out by these content creators were simply ones that Russia wanted to amplify and reward. For example, Tim Pool’s words following the German arrest warrant issued to purported perpetrators of the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, who were Ukrainian—”Ukraine is the greatest threat to this nation and to the world. We should rescind all funding and financing, pull out all military support, and we should apologize to Russia.” First off, not enough information has come out about the Nord Stream pipeline explosion to be able to determine whether state actors were, exactly, responsible (it’s a very odd and complicated story); second off, you can oppose funding the war effort while recognizing that Ukraine is absolutely not the “greatest threat to this nation” or to “the world,” nor does Russia need our apologies when its military has indefensibly slaughtered vast numbers of Ukrainian civilians.

Somewhat predictably, there’s not a clear ideology or even party that appeared to be favored by Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva. A telling section from the 32-page indictment: “RT’s propaganda is most obvious when it reports on matters of importance to the Government of Russia, such as public opinion about Ukraine in the United States. When direct propaganda is not effective, however, RT has pursued malign influence campaigns in countries opposed to its policies, including the United States, in an effort to sow domestic divisions and thereby weaken opposition to Government of Russia objectives. For example, in discussing RT’s coverage of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union in 2016, an RT journalist recalled to an academic researcher: ‘I asked my editor, what is RT’s line for this [Brexit], and he said: “Anything that causes chaos is RT’s line.”‘”

Millions of dollars allegedly funneled from Russia to generate amazing content like this pic.twitter.com/OvrWQLIilB

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 5, 2024

For some people, the mere fact that the media spent so much time spreading Russia collusion hoax nonsense in the lead-up to the 2016 election is reason to discredit coverage of this alleged Russian meddling or to dismiss it as hammed up. See this:

Even by the standards of Russia, Russia, Russia hoaxes, the Tenet Media/Lauren Chen case makes no sense:
— Chen was riling up pro-lifers *against* Trump. @Cernovich, Steve Deace, and others had been calling out these “purists” for weeks, and now they’re vindicated.
— Chen was…

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) September 5, 2024

I think this is a bad take. Journalists and commentators should be more discerning and forthright as to who is bankrolling them, and if the charges prove true, media company executives (like Chen and Donovan) have behaved irresponsibly—as well as illegally—in taking these Russian actors’ money in the first place.

Scenes from New York: A former aide to not one but TWO New York governors was charged Tuesday with acting as an “illegal agent” of the Chinese government—a spy—”who used her state positions to subtly advance Beijing’s agenda in exchange for financial benefits worth millions of dollars,” according to the Associated Press. It was via these relationships that Linda Sun and her husband were able to buy multiple houses and luxury cars. Sun reportedly did China’s bidding in myriad ways, including blocking Taiwanese officials from being able to meet with New York government officials.

Sun was deputy diversity officer for Gov. Andrew Cuomo and deputy chief of staff for Gov. Kathy Hochul. “If true, the allegations show that Chinese authorities were able to gain influence at the highest levels of state government in New York for nearly a decade,” adds the A.P.

• Bridget Phetasy talks to Louise Perry about “the dark truth about divorce” on Perry’s (excellent) podcast, Maiden Mother Matriarch.
• President Joe Biden will block Nippon Steel’s takeover of U.S. Steel.
• Four people were killed yesterday by a gunman at a high school in northern Georgia.
• “They steal the food, charge exorbitant prices for it from the Gaza population and that’s how they hope to continue to survive,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of Hamas’ handling of humanitarian aid. “We have to take that away from them. I don’t want to run Gaza. I don’t want to administer Gaza. But I want to take this away from them.”
• Speaking of which, useful thread about the composition of the Knesset, and the reasons why Netanyahu remains in power despite being so broadly unpopular:

Which leads to the second issue — the composition of the anti-Netanyahu opposition.

Just because someone opposes Netanyahu, or is in favor of a hostage deal, doesn’t mean they aren’t from a very close political camp.

Ironically, Netanyahu divided the right.

— Abraham Gutman (@abgutman) September 3, 2024

• Firefighters don’t really fight fires anymore:

Weird situation where firefighters (mostly) don’t fight fires anymore pic.twitter.com/2qtUrgHbYL

— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) September 4, 2024

• Kind of a dick move to do this to a family member, but also, it’s good that we live in the type of country where we can vociferously disagree with our friends and family about politics:

Tim Walz’s family has a message for him: pic.twitter.com/TLrMii4IoA

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 4, 2024

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